Living with earthquake and flood hazards in Jammu and Kashmir, NW Himalaya

This paper aims to highlight the urgent need to educate local students and community leaders about the science of earthquakes, and floods, and how to live with such hazards in Jammu and Kashmir. This is backed by the field evidence where interactions will locals suggest an urgent need of comprehensive planning to educate, engage, and train local students about the science of earthquake and flood hazards. The entire population of Jammu and Kashmir is >12 million, and the vulnerability to hazards is unavoidable unless a robust framework is planned for the region.

Researchers' fieldwork clearly shows that Kashmir conflict, which is more than 71 years old political problem, has a negative impact on the mindset of people because they take earthquake and flood hazards as of secondary importance than the resolution of the political issue. Therefore, they conclude that scientific work related to hazards is highly required to educate local people by organizing a series of workshops, training sessions, course modules, international conferences, public talks, together with the dissemination of awareness about adopting earthquake resistant construction model.